Army Lab Employees Win Major General Harold J. Greene Awards

Photo By Richard M Arndt | DEVCOM CBC technology advocate Mike Cress (left) examines an M26 decontamination system. Cress earned a top award in the Major General Harold J. Greene Acquisition Writing Competition. (U.S. Army photo by Richard Arndt)  

ABERDEEN PROVING GROUND, MD, UNITED STATES

01.17.2023

Story by Kiara Boone 

U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Chemical Biological Center

Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD – Two employees of the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Chemical Biological Center (DEVCOM CBC) earned top honors in the Army’s 2022 Major General Harold J. "Harry" Greene Competition for acquisition writing.

The Major General Harold J. Greene Award is an Army writing competition focused on improving Army acquisition. The competition was established in 2014 to encourage all individuals to share their ideas, insight and experiences for improving Army acquisition. Authors may submit articles in one of four categories: lessons learned, innovation, future operations, or acquisition reform.

The acquisition writing competition is named after Major General Harry Greene, the Deputy Commanding General of the Combined Security Transition Command-Afghanistan, who was killed on Aug. 5, 2014, while making a visit to Marshal Fahim National Defense University in Kabul, Afghanistan. In 2009, Greene served as the deputy commanding general of the Army Research, Development and Engineering Command, which later became DEVCOM.

The two award winners are Mike Cress, the Center’s former liaison officer and currently a rehired annuitant at the Maneuver Support Center of Excellence at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri; and Daniel O'Neil, a CBC employee who is matrixed to the Joint Program Executive Office for Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Defense (JPEO-CBRND).

Cress retired in 2021 as a liaison officer for CBC. In 2022, he returned to federal service as a rehired annuitant and is currently a technology advocate for DEVCOM CBC. A rehired annuitant is a retired DoD employee who returns to federal civilian service. Cress has over 46 years of knowledge about chemical biological defense initiatives. He was awarded in the category of innovation. His manuscript, "Leveraging Innovation to Modernize Decontamination," explains how to apply technology to solve future user problems.

Cress chose his topic after observing industry approaches problem solving. “Industry is very agile and responsive to change. Army Acquisition must do the same to ensure that the products we deliver to service members are technically mature and have the potential to overmatch future adversaries,” said Cress. “Leveraging innovation and exercising collaboration between government, industry and academia is critical to ensuring that we deliver cutting edge capabilities and best value to our warfighters.”

Daniel O’Neil is a DEVCOM CBC engineer matrixed to JPEO-CBRND as the lead for mission and analytics. A matrixed employee is a CBC subject matter expert in a particular functional area who supports a Program Executive Office customer. Matrixed employees work closely with the PEO team to support efforts that are continual and collective.

The partnership between DEVCOM CBC and JPEO-CBRND helps advance digital engineering. “Being able to jump back and forth between the organizations helps further partnerships and allows us to be more effective as a community,” said O’Neil.

O’Neil was awarded in the category of acquisition reform. The winning submission is entitled "Overcoming our Complexity Complex: Emerging Insights from Model Based Design," co-authored by O’Neil and Joseph Novick, developing a systems model for protectives covers, coatings and overlays.

"Technology has enabled increased capability to be delivered to the Warfighter. However, that added capability has come at a cost of increased complexity and we have a need to adapt our acquisition methodology to be able to make effective decisions and understand our systems”, said O’Neil.

Both employees represent the Center to the chemical biological defense partner organizations they support, and both have brought with them a wealth of knowledge that they have gained from their experiences at the Center, said Lowry Brooks, the Center’s deputy director for engineering. Cress has analyzed chemical biological processes for years and is very knowledgeable about past and current ones. O’Neil is on the other end of the spectrum as a young employee who is leaning forward in his field.

“The partnership CBC has cultivated with other organizations is a perfect example of organizations supporting each other, mutually growing talent, and in doing so, achieve the overarching goal of our whole enterprise, which is of course, taking care of the warfighter,” Brooks said.

******
The U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command (DEVCOM) Chemical Biological Center (CBC) is aligned under the U.S. Army Futures Command (AFC) and U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command (DEVCOM.)

AFC provides Army modernization solutions (integrated concepts, organizational designs, and technologies) in order to allow the Joint Force, employing Army capabilities, to achieve overmatch in the future operation environment. DEVCOM is a major subordinate command of AFC. DEVCOM leads in the discovery, development, and delivery of technology-based capabilities to enable Soldiers to win our nation’s wars and come home safely. DEVCOM CBC is the Army’s principal research and development center for chemical and biological defense technology, engineering, and field operations. DEVCOM CBC is headquartered at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland.

For more information about the DEVCOM Chemical Biological Center, visit https://cbc.DEVCOM.army.mil

• Date Taken: 01.17.2023
• Date Posted: 01.17.2023 15:03
• Story ID: 436837
• Location: ABERDEEN PROVING GROUND, MD, US